Back in the day

Many Bostonians resented the heavy British military presence in their city during the late 1700s, and the soldiers' enforcement of the unpopular Townshend Acts merely exacerbated the tense situation. On March 5th, 1770, soldiers opened fire on an aggressive, rioting civilian mob, killing five men. The Boston Massacre, as it became known, fueled the anti-British sentiment that culminated in the American Revolutionary War. Which future US president served as the troops' defense lawyer?

Feature

An automat is a fast food restaurant where food and drinks are served by coin- and bill-operated vending machines. Joseph Horn and Frank Hardart opened the first automat in the US in 1902 and quickly popularized the notion of take-out food with their slogan â€œLess work for Mother.â€ The original automat machines, which had little windows containing the prepared meals, were filled from behind by workers who cooked the fresh food in an unseen kitchen. What led to the decline of automat dining?

Born on a day like today

Luxemburg was a Polish-born German revolutionary and Marxist political theorist. She helped found the Polish Social Democratic Party and was a leader of the left wing of the German Social Democratic Party, where she collaborated with Karl Liebknecht in founding the Spartacus League in 1918. Imprisoned during WWI for opposing the war, Luxemburg continued to secretly write politically inflammatory essays and had them illegally smuggled out of prison and published. How did she die?